Comments on: Gwinnett school system tries to cow charters

By: MarkRight

MarkRight — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:30:53 +0000

Interesting story as for me. It would be great to read something more about that topic.

By: New To Ivy Prep

New To Ivy Prep — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:56:03 +0000

My child attended GCPS since kindergarten and has been under an IEP since 3rd grade. This past spring even though she didn’t pass the CRCT she wasn’t allowed to attend summer school because the space had to be given to a student not under an IEP! My concern was any child that needed summer school should have been allowed to attend. I transferred my child to Ivy this year and BECAUSE of the after school enrichment along with 2 periods of math instruction DAILY she is grasping the concepts better than when she attended GCPS. Now how does a school with a minute fraction of the GCPS budget accomplish this? Maybe Gwinnett needs to take a look at this school model. At the end of the day as parents we want our children to be successful, productive, and academically prepared to meet the increasingly complex challenges of tomorrow. What sense does it make for our children to graduate HS unprepared for the rigors of college and life? Just ask any professor who has to teach some of these kids coming out of HS totally unprepared. Sadly, we then wonder why the US is falling behind other countries in producing the best and the brightest. For the vast majority of Americans that are unable to afford private school to thoroughly equip their children public school is the only option. The public school methods of teaching/inspiring our children MUST change.

By: Current Ivy Prep Parent

Current Ivy Prep Parent — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:47:32 +0000

I am a current Ivy Prep and I have been for the past two years. I LOVE Ivy Prep. Ivy Prep does wonders for its students. Let me just speak on behalf of my child. My child has been part of Gwinnett County school system since grade K. I have not been pleased with the district every since. Because of that I elected to send my child to Ivy Prep and other students to another local charter school. My child did not pass the CRCT 4 grade and 5 grade and had to attend summer school every year. But not when she started at Ivy Prep and let me remind you, she is a Special Ed student. This past year my child passed the CRCT and did not have to attend summer school for the first time in years. My child finally enjoys going to school and is talking about college. She NEVER enjoyed school. It just angers me that a district would try and shut down a school that is doing wonders for students and has some of the highest scores in the state. If you dont believe me check it for your self. Parents should have the right to chose where our children go to school and why should my tax paying dollars not follow my child where she is being educated. I love ivy Prep and I hope more people will start to realize what a great school it is. Parents who left last year were poison to the school and not good people at all and tried to keep up mess within our parent community.

By: William

William — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:41:02 +0000

Is it the lack of education or the chaos that have public schools in the public forum. Regardless, I have to pay taxes to maintain public schools when I should have the choice to direct my taxes to a private school that reflects my values and customs.

Public schools do not promote hardly any of my beliefs and mores. One person can say that offends me and generations of customs and lifestyles are in jeopardy. So much for freedom when it applies to only a few. That is what public schools have done to so many. Public schools rejected the mainstream and married itself to the few who gained government support.

I want my taxes supporting the type of education I want for my kids and not what the government claim my kids should have. I am for charter schools and more of them. I hope public schools get exactly what they deserve–empty classrooms.

By: Jimmy62

Jimmy62 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:52:04 +0000

People who corrected me were absolutely right. Obama and Duncan didn’t kill Charter schools in DC. They killed the voucher program in DC. Which means there are lots of kids in bad schools who can’t afford any other choice. They are trapped. And that’s not just in DC, that’s all over. Nor is it just urban areas. We have a taxpayer supported education system that has some good schools and a lot more not so good schools, and we trap our low income population in the bad ones with no way out. And the “elites” kill ideas that might free them from their shackles of substandard education. If the public school system was doing such a great job, then why are we so behind other countries?

Allow education funds to be used at the school of a parent’s choice. And when no one wants to go to the bad schools, they will either have to improve or shut down and allow their students to go elsewhere. It’s called competition, and it makes things better. What we have now is a virtual monopoly due to the economics of spending plenty on taxes, then having to spend that over again to send your kid to a decent school. It means you don’t really have a choice, and that seems to be just the way the liberal leadership and various teachers’ organizations like it. I don’t understand how people can call me racist for not liking Obama’s monopartisan health care plan, but think of themselves as not racist even though they support anything and everything that will trap lower income students (not just black, of course, but primarily so in urban situations) in crappy schools.

By: Chris Broe

Chris Broe — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:35:45 +0000

Anyone read Bookman today? Style over content. He hacks someone else’s voice and thus, with no earned structural accomplishment, his point carries no more weight than an emoticon. In today’s instance, Bookman’s point is better expressed by the emoticon which depicts the face of a guy nursing a gas bubble.

BOOKMAN!!!

As for the money angle, the Gwinnett system claims in part that the state’s grant of some $850,000 to Ivy Preparatory Academy risks “irreparable harm” to other county students.

Lyle Kingfield: Don’t start a paragraph with a preposition. It is sheer torture to wade through the awkward phrasing that follows. Most readers will simply give up. We all have too much to read. Please consider that you have readers with limited time and patience.

Also, Lyle, be brief for the same reasons you have made a resolution to stop torturing readers: limited time and patience. Get to the point. Stop trying to be cute, clever, stylish. Example? Bookman’s “Five alarm Tizzy” metaphor today. He didn’t earn that with any other firefighting reference either before or after. Bookman writes mostly just a bunch of gas that goes stale as it collects into a uncomfortably-unexpelled bubble. That’s bookman: a methane-hoarding, troll coddling menace to journalism, justice, and the American Way.

By: algonquin J. Calhoun

algonquin J. Calhoun — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:25:31 +0000

Since you brought it up, I’ll comment about healthcare Kyle. Something really needs to be done! Six years ago today, I had surgery to remove my gallbladder and a cancerous kidney. I had insurance but still went broke. Politicians, like Wilson, are in the pocket of the insurance companies and health care industry. Consequently, they represent those special interests and not the people. Have you ever seen posters that ask for donations so a person can have a needed transplant? That’s unacceptable here in this country! Every citizen should be given good medical treatment when it is needed and every child should receive a good education. I don’t oppose the concept of charter schools but the overall quality of education for our kids has to improve or the United States will become a nation of dunces! We can’t allow the entirety of the country to become as backward and incestuous as most of Georgia is.

By: Kyle Wingfield

Kyle Wingfield — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:57:04 +0000

As for the health-reform comparisons: There is a big difference between taking existing government spending and using it in a different way without increasing it — as with charter schools — and adding hundreds of billions of dollars a year in new government spending — as with a public health-insurance option.

And the conceit that you can only support either the Democrats’ plan or the status quo is getting real old, considering all the other proposals out there.

By: algonquin J. Calhoun

algonquin J. Calhoun — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:51:39 +0000

Kyle, you’re not helping the charter schools by mentioning that they can be helpful to under-privileged children. To many of these mouth breathers, under-privileged can only mean one thing-black kids! charter schools could help so many children and could bring Georgia out of the dark ages it has always inhabited educationally. This, however, is not a progressive state. So many of your readers fancy themselves patriots but it’s impossible to be patriotic if you don’t support education of our children-all of them! I teach in the university system of Georgia and I can tell you that the kids I’m getting can not write at all. it’s too late to fix those kids. It has to start long before they get to me.

By: Kyle Wingfield

Kyle Wingfield — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:48:47 +0000

Marcos and Woodie: Charter schools *are* public schools. They are publicly funded. They just aren’t run by the same people who run *other* public schools.

And, Marcos, if supporting charter schools means that “conservatives hate public education,” does that also mean that President Obama, another supporter of charter schools, “hates public education”? This is one way to “fix it,” not to “run away.”